The New York Times Editorial Board recently released a multi-part series, “Overmatched,” exploring the ways in which “the U.S. military is ill prepared for today’s global threats and revolutionary technologies.”
The Editorial Board rightly notes that the U.S. military is struggling to keep pace with increasingly capable adversaries like China, citing the need to improve alliance-building, industrial and manufacturing capacities, service participation, and Pentagon bureaucracy.
The Board also mentions innovation as a key component of national security:
“Ultimately, a stronger U.S. national security depends less on enormous new budgets than on wiser investments. Spending heavily on traditional symbols of might risks shortchanging the true sources of American strength: relentless innovation, rapid adaptability and a willingness to discard old assumptions.”
What the Editorial Board does not fully address, however, is how that “relentless innovation” actually occurs — and, critically, the role that strong intellectual property rights plays in sustaining it.
Unfortunately, that foundation of America’s historic innovativeness — our once world-leading IP system — is eroding just as quickly as our military dominance. If our leaders don’t start treating our IP system as a core component of our national security strategy, we’ll continue to be overmatched.
Innovation is Essential to National Security
American innovation has long served as the foundation of our military success.
But today, we risk falling behind, especially in IP-intensive sectors. According to one tracker, China is leading the United States in 66 out of 74 critical technologies. Chinese innovation in AI and energy has surged.
In some areas, we still have a fighting chance. As the New York Times notes:
“The United States has the lead in some areas, especially in A.I., thanks to the massive investments of the private sector.”
But that lead could easily slip if our enemies prioritize defense innovation while the U.S. stays complacent and erodes the strong intellectual property protections that fuel innovation. Our adversaries are already testing the weapons of tomorrow:
“China has released video footage of what appears to be a robotic wingman being tested in flight. Ukraine’s forces have captured a Russian drone that could fly dozens of miles, identify and lock onto targets, then plunge into a nosedive and deliver six pounds of explosives to blow up the target, apparently all without any human guidance.”
If we want to outpace China or Russia, the United States must continue to prioritize innovation in cutting-edge sectors — and defend the IP rights that underlie it. Strong IP protections give large companies, investors, and startups the confidence to invest in the breakthroughs that lead to critical technologies — like artificial intelligence — that our military needs in order to stay ahead of our enemies.
Strong Intellectual Property Rights Underpin Innovation
Intellectual property rights are the backbone of U.S. innovation.
Innovation is a long, risky, and expensive process. Inventions often require many iterations before succeeding — if they ever do. And even when a promising breakthrough emerges, turning a discovery into a usable product requires enormous investment and sustained research and development.
Strong IP protections ensure that private-sector innovators and investors are willing to bear those costs and risks. Patents give innovators a clear, enforceable way to protect their inventions. That assurance makes the risks worth it — after all, if competitors could immediately copy their work without compensation, there would be little incentive to innovate in the first place.
Right Now, U.S. Innovation is Under Threat — We Must Take Action
In recent decades, a series of court cases, executive branch measures, and legislative proposals have threatened the IP protections that incentivize innovators and investors to undertake and fund risky, expensive R&D in military technologies and cutting-edge fields critical to our national security, such as biotech, energy, and advanced computing.
The Supreme Court has steadily eroded the types of inventions eligible for patenting, casting a broad shadow over innovation in critical software-based technologies like AI, advanced telecommunications, quantum computing, and more.
In addition, the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay v. MercExchange drastically reduced a patent holder’s ability to obtain an injunction — a court order to cease infringing activities — when their patent is infringed. Limiting injunctive relief curtails a core benefit of patent protection — exclusive right to one’s invention — and drives many inventors away from the patent system altogether. In fact, U.S. patent application filings have been declining in recent years — with data showing drops not only in pandemic years but also in 2017 and 2018, years not marked by war, recession, or other extraordinary economic disruption — indicating a broader retreat from the patent system.
More recent proposals — such as allowing the government to claim royalties from patents on federally funded discoveries — threaten the public-private partnerships that connect laboratory discoveries with private-sector resources to undertake the long, costly journey of commercialization into usable products. No company would risk that process without the guarantee of secure patent protections.
If we’re not careful, our world-class innovation pipeline will collapse. And in the meantime, we may even see our own discoveries stolen and used against us. The estimated cost of Chinese intellectual property theft to U.S. taxpayers is already $600 billion per year.
Washington must improve our national security by restoring domestic intellectual property protections and working with allies to improve global IP standards and enforcement. Only then will we be able to truly outmatch our adversaries.